Java Sevlet Mapping. Welcome File List

Question

In my web.xml file I have this

<!-- WELCOME FILE LIST -->
<welcome-file-list>
    <welcome-file>/index</welcome-file>
</welcome-file-list>

Which maps to this

<!-- SERVLET FOR THE HOME PAGE -->
<servlet>
    <servlet-name>HomePageServlet</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>com.gmustudent.HomePageServlet</servlet-class>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>HomePageServlet</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/index</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

When I put this in the address bar I get my home page site and the servlet grabs all of my content as requested.

http://localhost:8086/gmustudent/index

However, this gives me a 404

http://localhost:8086/gmustudent/

Why isn't my welcome file list grabbing that welcome file servlet when index is not explicitly stated?

Answer 1

     http://localhost:8086/gmustudent/

gmustudent is the context root of your webapplication. index is the resource you wanna access.

you configure welcome file like below, remove the prepending / :

<welcome-file>Index</welcome-file> 
</welcome-file-list> 

to access

  http://localhost:8086/gmustudent/